System and method of determining user demographic profiles of anonymous users

ABSTRACT

A method determines a user demographic profile of an anonymous user that visits one or more websites of a predetermined group of websites. The method includes determining whether an anonymous user&#39;s computer has user identification data installed thereon. Determining whether the user identification data is installed is performed upon the anonymous user visiting a website of the predetermined group of websites. The user identification data is unique to the anonymous user. The method further includes installing the user identification data on the anonymous user&#39;s computer if the anonymous user&#39;s computer does not have the user identification data installed thereon. The method further includes generating a first record of visits by the anonymous user to the websites of the predetermined group of websites. The method further includes providing one or more website profiles comprising demographic characteristics of each website visited by the anonymous user of the predetermined group of websites. The method further includes calculating an estimated user demographic profile of the anonymous user by using the first record of visits by the anonymous user and the one or more website profiles.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to systems and method forpresenting information (e.g., advertisements) to web browsers accessingwebsites via the Internet.

2. Description of the Related Art

Traditional web-based advertising systems or networks target content bydisplaying advertisements based on the content of the websites in thenetwork. Existing systems which seek to provide information regardingthe demographic profiles of users of these websites do so purely throughregistration data or internet audience measurement services. However,such systems do not provide sufficiently accurate information regardingthese users. These inaccuracies can result in missed opportunities topresent advertisements to users having a selected demographic profileand in extraneous presentations of the advertisements to users outsidethe desired target demographic profile.

SUMMARY

In certain embodiments, a method determines a user demographic profileof an anonymous user that visits one or more websites of a predeterminedgroup of websites. The method comprises determining whether an anonymoususer's computer has user identification data installed thereon.Determining whether the user identification data is installed isperformed upon the anonymous user visiting a website of thepredetermined group of websites. The user identification data is uniqueto the anonymous user. The method further comprises installing the useridentification data on the anonymous user's computer if the anonymoususer's computer does not have the user identification data installedthereon. The method further comprises generating a first record ofvisits by the anonymous user to the websites of the predetermined groupof websites. The method further comprises providing one or more websiteprofiles comprising demographic characteristics of each website visitedby the anonymous user of the predetermined group of websites. The methodfurther comprises calculating an estimated user demographic profile ofthe anonymous user by using the first record of visits by the anonymoususer and the one or more website profiles.

In certain embodiments, a method presents information to a plurality ofanonymous users that visit one or more websites of a predetermined groupof websites. The method comprises determining user demographic profilesof the plurality of anonymous users. Determining the user demographicprofiles comprises determining whether each anonymous user's computerhas user identification data installed thereon. Determining whether theuser identification data is installed is performed for each anonymoususer upon the anonymous user visiting a website of the predeterminedgroup of websites. The user identification data is unique to theanonymous user. Determining the user demographic profile furthercomprises installing user identification data on each anonymous user'scomputer if the anonymous user's computer does not have the useridentification data installed thereon. Determining the user demographicprofile further comprises generating a first record of visits by eachanonymous user to the websites of the predetermined group of websites.Determining the user demographic profile further comprises providing oneor more website profiles comprising demographic characteristics of eachwebsite visited by the anonymous user of the predetermined group ofwebsites. Determining the user demographic profile further comprisescalculating an estimated user demographic profile of each anonymous userby using the first record of visits of the anonymous users and the oneor more website profiles. The method further comprises receiving asignal indicating that an anonymous user of the plurality of anonymoususers is visiting a website of the predetermined group of websites. Themethod further comprises using the estimated user demographic profile ofthe anonymous user to select information to be presented to theanonymous user. The method further comprises transmitting theinformation to the anonymous user's computer.

In certain embodiments, a computer-readable medium has instructionsstored thereon which cause a general-purpose computer to perform amethod of determining a user demographic profile of an anonymous user ofone or more websites of a predetermined group of websites. The methodcomprises determining whether an anonymous user's computer has useridentification data installed thereon. Determining whether the useridentification data is installed is performed upon the anonymous uservisiting a website of the predetermined group of websites, the useridentification data unique to the anonymous user. The method furthercomprises installing the user identification data on the anonymoususer's computer if the anonymous user's computer does not have the useridentification data installed thereon. The method further comprisesgenerating a first record of visits by the anonymous user to thewebsites of the predetermined group of websites. The method furthercomprises providing one or more website profiles comprising demographiccharacteristics of each website visited by the anonymous user of thepredetermined group of websites. The method further comprisescalculating an estimated user demographic profile of the anonymous userby using the first record of visits by the anonymous user and the one ormore website profiles.

In certain embodiments, a computer system determines a user demographicprofile of an anonymous user of one or more websites of a predeterminedgroup of websites. The computer system comprises means for receiving asignal transmitted via the Internet indicative of whether an anonymoususer's computer has user identification data installed thereon.Receiving the signal is performed upon the anonymous user visiting awebsite of the predetermined group of websites. The user identificationdata is unique to the anonymous user. The computer system furthercomprises means for transmitting the user identification data to theanonymous user's computer via the Internet if the anonymous user'scomputer does not have the user identification data installed thereon.The computer system further comprises means for generating a firstrecord of visits by the anonymous user to the websites of thepredetermined group of websites based on signals received via theInternet. The computer system further comprises means for providing oneor more website profiles comprising demographic characteristics of eachwebsite visited by the anonymous user of the predetermined group ofwebsites. The computer system further comprises means for calculating anestimated user demographic profile of the anonymous user by using thefirst record of visits by the anonymous user and the one or more websiteprofiles.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features will now be described with reference to thedrawings summarized below. These drawings and the associated descriptionare provided to illustrate various embodiments, and not to limit thescope of the invention.

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates an example configuration in whichcertain embodiments described herein can be used.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of an example method of determining a userdemographic profile of an anonymous user of one or more websites of apredetermined group of websites in accordance with certain embodimentsdescribed herein.

FIG. 3A shows an example log data file comprising a plurality of logdata lines in accordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 3B shows an example total log data file in accordance with certainembodiments described herein.

FIG. 3C shows an example sorted total log data file in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an example method for sorting the lines of thetotal log data file in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein.

FIG. 5 shows an example sorting plan file in accordance with certainembodiments described herein.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of an example process for processing the log datafiles in accordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 7 shows an example processed list file in accordance with certainembodiments described herein.

FIG. 8 shows example demographic subgroups of demographic categories inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an example process for providing the websiteprofile in accordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 10A shows an example sorted daily web traversal history file inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 10B shows an example “clean” sorted daily web traversal historyfile in accordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of an example process for assigning the users ofthe predetermined group of users to one or more demographic subgroups inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 12A shows the contents of a listing of websites skewed towards oneor more age groups.

FIG. 12B shows the contents of a listing of websites skewed towards onegender or the other.

FIG. 13 shows an example skewed website traversal history file inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 14 shows an example user demographic assignment file in accordancewith certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 15 shows the estimated distribution of various demographicsubgroups for various example websites as compared to the expecteddistribution on the Internet.

FIG. 16A shows an example daily website profile file in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 16B shows an aggregate website profile file for all Mondays duringthe period of November 1st to December 25th.

FIG. 17A shows an example website composition vector in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 17B shows a listing of the fields of each line of an examplewebsite composition file in accordance with certain embodimentsdescribed herein.

FIG. 17C shows a listing of the fields of an example daily websitecomposition file in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein.

FIG. 17D shows a portion of an example daily website composition file inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 17E shows a listing of the fields of an example hourly websitecomposition file in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein.

FIG. 18 shows a portion of an example user history file in accordancewith certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 19A shows an example user probability vector in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 19B shows a listing of the fields of an example user probabilitytable in accordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 19C shows a portion of an example user probability table inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 20A shows a portion of an example user demographic table inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 20B shows one example set of demographic groups in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Certain embodiments described herein provide a system and method fordemographically profiling anonymous users to websites having websitedemographic profiles. This demographic profiling of the anonymous userscan provide information regarding the gender, age group, or otherdemographic categories of the individual anonymous users based on theirweb traversal data. For example, in certain embodiments, the correctgender information can be calculated for more than 97% of anonymoususers, and determining the demographic subgroups of the anonymous usersin other demographic categories can also be calculated. Certainembodiments described herein utilize the demographic profile of theanonymous user to present advertisements to the anonymous user with theadvertisements tailored to members of one or more of the demographicsubgroups of the anonymous user. For example, the advertisements can beones designed to appeal to users having the anonymous user's demographicprofile. By targeting users having specific demographic profiles,certain embodiments described herein advantageously removeinefficiencies out of the online media buying process and provideadvertisers with optimal return on investment and give advertisersinsight regarding the audience reached by their advertisements.

Certain embodiments described herein advantageously handle large amountsof data such that one day's worth of data corresponding to millions(e.g., 10 million) of anonymous users is processed within 3 to 6 hours.Certain embodiments described herein advantageously are run in automatedmode every day and on remote servers. Thus, certain embodimentsdescribed herein run with minimal user interaction.

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates an example configuration in whichcertain embodiments described herein can be used. A number of anonymoususers use the web browser programs (e.g., Internet Explorer®, Firefox®,Safari®) installed on their computers 10 to access or visit a number ofwebsites 20 via the Internet 30. These websites 20 each presentinformation (e.g., primary content and/or advertisements) to theanonymous user visiting the website 20. As used herein, the term“anonymous user” has its broadest reasonable meaning, which includesusers whose information regarding their identity or demographiccharacteristics has not previously been provided to the website 20 bythe user or from other sources.

When an anonymous user visits a page of a website 20, besides sendingthe requested web page to the anonymous user's computer 10, the website20 typically also includes advertisements. The website 20 can receivethese advertisements from one or more advertisement databases or servers40 in communication with the website 20 (e.g., via the Internet 30 orvia a dedicated communication channel between the advertisement servers40 and the website server). Upon a user visiting the website 20, thewebsite 20 can send a request to the advertisement server 40 to transmitadvertisement information (e.g., an image) and a link to another webpagewith further information regarding the products or services beingadvertised. The advertisement information is presented (e.g., as aclickable image which links to a webpage with further information) aspart of the website 20 displayed on the user's computer 10. If the useris interested in getting further information, the user can direct theuser's computer 10 to access the link so that the user's browser visitsthe corresponding webpage. In addition, if the user wishes to conduct atransaction or otherwise interact with the corresponding webpage, theuser can direct the user's computer 10 to do so. Typically, this accessof the corresponding webpage takes place via the advertisement server40. Thus, the advertisement server 40 can not only track the requestsmade by websites 20 for advertisements, but can also track whether theanonymous user “clicked-through” to the webpage corresponding to thedisplayed advertisement, and can track the user's subsequent actions(e.g., sale, registration, application, or any other action that theadvertiser is trying to achieve with the advertisement).

In addition, the website 20 can place tracking information (e.g., in theform of a cookie) onto the anonymous user's computer 10 to aid intracking the browsing history of the anonymous user 20. This informationis made accessible to the website 20 by the anonymous user's computer 10upon subsequent visits by the anonymous user to the website 20 (e.g., tokeep track of the anonymous user's history of accessing the website 20).

Certain embodiments described herein include methods which are performedby computer hardware and/or software comprising one or more modules. Thehardware used for certain embodiments described herein can take a widevariety of forms, including general-purpose computers, network servers,workstations, personal computers, mainframe computers and the like. Thecomputers running the software will typically include one or more inputdevices, such as a mouse, trackball, touchpad, and/or keyboard, adisplay, and computer-readable memory media, such as random-accessmemory (RAM) integrated circuits and a hard-disk drive. It will beappreciated that one or more portions, or all of the software code maybe remote from the user and, for example, resident on a networkresource, such as a LAN server, Internet server, network storage device,etc. The software code which configures the hardware to perform inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein is typicallyprovided on a computer-readable medium, such as a CD-ROM. The softwarecode may also be downloaded from a network server which is part of alocal-area network (LAN) or a wide-area network (WAN), such as theInternet. Various computer languages, architectures, and configurationscan be used to practice the various embodiments described herein. Forexample, certain embodiments described herein can be performed using aJava program comprising a plurality of modules running on a Unix orLinux platform. Certain embodiments described herein are performed by32-bit machines which have limited random-access memory.

As described below, many of the intermediate results or files utilizedin certain embodiments described herein are quite large. Therefore, incertain embodiments, the intermediate results or files areadvantageously stored on a disk drive rather than random-access memory,and the method is divided into several Java class modules, where eachmodule takes an input or an intermediate file and creates anintermediate file or final output file. In certain embodiments, thevarious files and tables described herein have comma separated value(CSV) format, while in certain other embodiments, other formats (e.g.,XML) can be used. In certain embodiments, the fields of the variousfiles and tables are placed in a predetermined order and the position ofa field relative to the other fields is indicative of the type ofinformation contained in the field.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of an example method 100 of determining a userdemographic profile of an anonymous user that visits one or morewebsites 20 of a predetermined group of websites in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein. In an operational block 110, themethod 100 comprises determining whether an anonymous user's computer 10has user identification data installed thereon. The determination ofwhether the anonymous user's computer 10 has the user identificationdata installed thereon is performed upon the anonymous user visiting awebsite 20 of the predetermined group of websites. The useridentification data is unique to the anonymous user. In an operationalblock 120, the method 100 further comprises installing the useridentification data on the anonymous user's computer 10 if the anonymoususer's computer 10 does not have the user identification data installedthereon. In an operational block 130, the method 100 further comprisesgenerating a first record of visits by the anonymous user to thewebsites 20 of the predetermined group of websites. In an operationalblock 140, the method 100 further comprises providing a website profilecomprising demographic characteristics of each website 20 of thepredetermined group of websites visited by the anonymous user. In anoperational block 150, the method 100 further comprises calculating anestimated user demographic profile of the anonymous user by using thefirst record of visits by the anonymous user and the website profile.

In certain embodiments, the predetermined group of websites comprises agroup of member, client, or partner websites which receive advertisementinformation from an advertisement server system which practices themethod 100. The advertisement server system can comprise one or moreadvertisement servers and one or more data servers. In certainembodiments, one or more servers are used as both an advertisementserver and a data server. In certain embodiments, a plurality of set upadvertisement servers are configured so that any of the servers canadequately serve the request from any user. This configuration is chosenin certain embodiments to serve a large number of simultaneous requestsfrom a large number of users on the Internet. These advertisementservers periodically interact with a database server to gather specificinformation about an advertisement to be served to a user based on theuser's anonymous profile and other factors. Various configurations ofdatabases and servers are compatible with certain embodiments describedherein.

User Identification Data

In certain embodiments, determining whether the anonymous user'scomputer 10 has user identification data installed thereon comprisesaccessing a cookies file on the user's computer 10 and determiningwhether the cookie file contains a cookie having an expected format andcomprising the user identification data. In certain embodiments, theuser identification data comprises a cookie having between 15 and 20bytes of data. As used herein, the term “cookie” has its broadestreasonable meaning, including but not limited to information sent by aserver to a user's computer 10 via the web browser program, and which issent back to the server via the web browser upon the web browseraccessing the server again. Cookies in general are known in the art as ameans for authenticating, tracking, and maintaining specific informationregarding a user.

The user identification data of certain embodiments is solely anarbitrary identifier of the user's computer 10. In certain otherembodiments, the user identification data can comprise informationregarding the user, the user's computer, an internet service provider(ISP) through which the user is accessing the website 20, or anadvertisement server which provides advertisements to websites beingvisited by the user. In certain embodiments, an advertisement serverproviding advertisements to websites being visited by the user has an IPaddress, and the user identification data has the IP address encodedtherein. For example, for a user identification of “2111A0AA2899BA495,”the string left after removing the first 11 characters is 9BA495 whichis the IP address of the advertisement server in hexadecimal.

In certain embodiments, installing the user identification data on theanonymous user's computer 10 comprises creating a user identificationfile (e.g., a cookies file) on the user's computer 10 if one does notalready exist, and placing the user identification data within this file(e.g., installing a cookie onto the anonymous user's computer 10). Whenthe user identification file already exists, installing the useridentification data on the anonymous user's computer 10 comprisesplacing the user identification data within this previously-existingfile (e.g., installing a cookie onto the anonymous user's computer 10).

The determination of whether the user's computer 10 contains the useridentification data and/or the installation of the user identificationdata on the user's computer can be done in certain embodiments by anadvertisement server using techniques that are known to persons skilledin the art. The advertisement server of certain embodiments comprisesone or more computers which access and/or store advertisementinformation and which transmit selected advertisement information tousers in response to requests received by the advertisement server fromthe website 20. Upon the anonymous user visiting a member, client, orpartner website 20 which receive advertisement information from theadvertisement server, the advertisement server can detect the useridentification data and/or install the user identification data on theanonymous user's computer 10. As used herein, the term “server” has itsbroadest reasonable meaning, including but not limited to a computerand/or a computer program that accepts requests from web browsers andthat transmits responses (e.g., HTTP responses including data, HTMLdocuments, linked objects such as images) to the web browser programs ofthe user's computers 10.

Visits by the Anonymous Users to Various Websites

In certain embodiments, generating the first record of visits by theanonymous users to the websites 20 comprises sending the useridentification data and the uniform resource locator (URL) address ofthe visited website 20 to a data server each time a user accesses one ofthe websites 20 of the plurality of websites. For example, in certainembodiments, the data server is an automated system which receives theuser identification data and the URL address of the visited website 20for a plurality of visits by anonymous users to websites 20 of thepredetermined group of websites, records the data and the timecorresponding to this event, and generates a log data line 200corresponding to this event in a log data file 210. FIG. 3A shows anexample log data file 210 comprising a plurality of log data lines 200in accordance with certain embodiments described herein. In certainembodiments, a plurality of log data files 210 is generated by the dataserver. For example, in certain embodiments, each log data file 210comprises about 3.3 MB to 3.5 MB of text in about 30000 log data lines200, one log data file 210 is generated approximately every two to threeminutes, and about 700-800 log data files 210 are generated each day.Therefore, in certain embodiments, the log data files 210 contain about3.3 MB*800=2.6 GB of data containing about 800*30000=24 million log datalines 200. In certain embodiments, the total amount of data in the logdata files 210 can be even larger (e.g., 100 million lines with 4000 MBof data per day).

As shown in FIG. 3A, in certain embodiments, each log data line 200 ofthe log data file 210 can comprise a plurality of fields. In certainsuch embodiments, these fields include the user identification data ofthe user (UserID), date and time information regarding the user's visitto the website 20 (TimeStamp), and the site identification dataidentifying the site visited by the user (SiteID). Each log data line200 corresponds to a visit by user indicated by the UserID informationvisiting a website indicated by the SiteID information on the date andtime indicated by the TimeStamp information. In certain embodiments, thedate and time information can instead be included in two separatefields: a date field and a hour field (e.g., 1-24). In certainembodiments, the log data lines 200 comprises other fields (e.g., IPaddress of the user, number of clicks, action taken by the user duringthe visit, country in which the user is located, state or othersublocation of the user) which can be used in certain embodiments or canbe ignored in certain other embodiments.

In certain embodiments, the log data files 210 are transmitted from thedata server to another server in which the log data files 210 areprocessed. For example, in certain embodiments, the log data files 210can be sorted or can be filtered or “cleaned” to remove unused orirrelevant data fields. In certain such embodiments, the log data files210 are transmitted in a compressed format (e.g., as a “.gz” file havinga size of about 800 KB or larger).

In certain embodiments, one log data file 210 having a size of about 3.5MB and about 30000 lines is received every two to three minutes. Theselog data files 210 in certain embodiments are saved and processed (e.g.,filtered, sorted) at regular intervals (e.g., every 12 or 24 hours). Forexample, in certain embodiments, the log data lines 200 of the log datafiles 210 are processed by removal of all the fields except UserID,SiteID, TimeStamp, and any other fields of interest (e.g., Clicks), andthese processed data lines are grouped together in a total log data file212.

FIG. 3B shows an example total log data file 212 with a plurality oflines 214 in accordance with certain embodiments described herein. Incertain embodiments, this total log data file 212 is in CSV format, witha first line comprising header information and the subsequent linescomprising data lines. The total log data file 212 of certainembodiments is an intermediate file stored locally, and is unneeded oncethe method 100 is over. In certain embodiments, the number of lines 214of the total log data file 212 is between 20 million and 50 millionlines and the size of the total log data file 212 is between 1.5 GB and3 GB. Other numbers of lines and sizes are also compatible with certainembodiments described herein.

In certain embodiments, the log data lines 200 corresponding to a givenuser may be distributed across multiple log data files 210 and scatteredamong lines 214 across various portions of the total log data file 212.For example, the log data lines 200 for a given user may be distributedamong 800 log data files 210 having 8 GB of data. The lines 214 of thetotal log data file 212 in certain embodiments are advantageously sortedto aggregate the lines 214 corresponding to the same user together. Incertain embodiments, the total log data file 212 is sorted by the UserIDfield. While Unix has a built-in sort utility, it fails to sort fileslarger than about 200 MB. Typical processes developed in C, Perl, orJava using ArrayList, HashMap, or TreeMap objects can only sort files upto 400 MB to 700 MB. Certain embodiments described herein utilize asorting process which can sort up to 8 GB text files.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an example method 220 for sorting the lines 214of the total log data file 212 in accordance with certain embodimentsdescribed herein. In an operational block 230, the total log data file212 is partitioned into a predetermined number (e.g., 64) of separatefiles which are each sorted in memory. In an operational block 240, twoof the files are merged together into one sorted file. The merge processof the operational block 240 is repeated for subsequent pairs of filesuntil all of the files have been merged into one large sorted total logdata file 250. For example, for a total log data file 212 partitionedinto 64 files, the process of the operational block 240 is repeated 63times. For files of X MB in size, after a first round of merge steps,there will be 32 files each having 2X MB of data. After a second roundof merge steps, there will be 16 files each having 4X MB of data, and soon. In certain embodiments, the sorting of the lines is performed whilemerging the files together, thereby improving performance by reducingprocessing time (e.g., by an order of magnitude).

In certain embodiments, a sorting plan file is used, wherein each lineof the sorting plan file corresponds to one merge step. FIG. 5 shows anexample sorting plan file 252 in accordance with certain embodimentsdescribed herein. In certain embodiments, the sorting plan file 252 hasone header line and a plurality of step lines with seven fields each.The “Step” field shown in FIG. 5 corresponds to the step number, the“InputFile1” and “InputFile2” fields correspond to the names of the twofiles to be merged, the “Dir1” field corresponds to the directory whereInputFile1 is stored, the “Dir2” field corresponds to the directorywhere InputFile2 is stored, the “OutputFile” field corresponds to thename of the output file of the merge step, and the “Dir3” fieldcorresponds to the directory where OutputFile is stored. For example,the first line indicates that File01.001 in directory A is merged withFile01.023 in directory B, with the resultant File02.001 in directory C.

In certain embodiments, each of the files to be merged and sorted isless than about 500 MB in size, and each file is small enough that itcan be sorted by an ordinary Java process. The sorting process ofcertain embodiments is then performed in the following six rounds:

Round 0: Provide 64 files of the same size (e.g., less than 500 MB) andsort each small file using an ordinary Java process (e.g., ArrayList);

Round 1: Merge the 64 sorted files, two files at a time, into 32 files;the merging ensures that each of the 32 output files are also sorted;

Round 2: Merge the 32 sorted files, two files at a time, into 16 sortedfiles;

Round 3: Merge the 16 sorted files, two files at a time, into 8 sortedfiles;

Round 4: Merge the 8 sorted files, two files at a time, into 4 sortedfiles;

Round 5: Merge the 4 sorted files, two files at a time, into 2 sortedfiles; and

Round 6: Merge the 2 sorted files into 1 sorted file.

In certain embodiments, each merging step utilizes two source files, andone destination file, and the merging step is performed quickly when allthree files are on three different disks or if the disk has severalheads. If the disk access is slow, the three directories can be ondifferent disks. If the disk access is fast and has several heads, thethree directories can be on the same disk. In addition, the overallspeed of the merge step can depend on where the initial 64 small fileswere placed, and the sequence in which the files are merged.

For example, a sorting plan can have 32 files stored on Directory Amerged with 32 files stored on Directory B, with the resultant 32 filesstored on Directory C. However, unless 16 of these 32 files on DirectoryC are moved to either Directory A or Directory B, subsequent merge stepswill be extremely slow. Thus, such a sorting plan would have significantoverhead due to copying 16 files before Round 2 begins. For example, ifthe total data to be sorted is 8 GB, the amount of copying to be donewould be about 4 GB per round. For the six rounds, the total copyingwould be about 24 GB. If the total data to be sorted is 32 GB, totalre-copying of files would be 96 GB which, at five minutes per GB,results in an overhead of about 480 minutes, or 8 hours.

The example sorting plan file 252 shown in FIG. 5 is compatible withcertain embodiments described herein which advantageously reduces suchcopying of the intermediate merged files. In certain embodiments, thisreduction of the copying can substantially eliminate the copying of theintermediate merged files, and can therefore improve the overall time ofthe sorting process by about 50% as compared to other sorting schemes.In certain embodiments, the sorting method advantageously allows up toabout 32 GB of data to be sorted on a computer with 4 GB orrandom-access memory (RAM). By ensuring that the merging routine isexecuted in the desired order, the merging routine of certainembodiments results in a resultant sorted file.

FIG. 3C shows an example sorted total log data file 254 in accordancewith certain embodiments described herein. The sorted total log datafile 254 is generated by sorting the lines 214 of the total log datafile 212, and in certain embodiments, has the same fields as the totallog data file 212, but the data lines are sorted and aggregated byUserID. The sorted total log data file 254 of certain embodiments servesas the first record of visits by the anonymous users to the websites 20of the predetermined group of websites generated in the operationalblock 130 of the method 100. The sorted total log data file 254 ofcertain embodiments provides a list of websites 20 each user visited,along with the number of times each user visited the website 20 and thetimes these visits occurred.

In certain embodiments, the log data files 210 are continually beingreceived and processed, so a procedure is advantageously used to keeptrack of which log data files 210 have already been processed and whichlog data files 210 have not yet been processed. In certain embodiments,a datastamp can be contained in the filename of the log data file 210and/or in the file creation date of the log data file 210 as given bythe operating system, however both of these options have drawbacks. Forexample, a log data file 210 with an older datestamp in its filename cansometimes be received after a log data file 210 with a newer datestamp.Also, when log data files 210 are restored from backup, or some similarevent, the file creation date may be changed.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of an example process 260 for processing the logdata files 210 in accordance with certain embodiments described herein.In certain embodiments, this process 260 is part of the generation ofthe first record of visits in the operational block 130 of the method100. In an operational block 270, the process 260 comprises reading thenames of all the log data files 210 in the directory (e.g., log dumpdirectory) in which the log data files 210 are stored. In an operationalblock 280, a processed list file 290 is read, the processed list file290 containing the names of the log data files 210 which have previouslybeen processed. In an operational block 300, the log data files 210listed in the processed list file 290 are removed from the directory,thereby leaving only those log data files 210 which have not yet beenprocessed. In an operational block 310, after processing these log datafiles 210, the processed list file 290 is updated to include the namesof these newly processed log data files 210.

FIG. 7 shows an example processed list file 290 in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein. The processed list file 290 has aheader line with field names, and a plurality of data lines containingthe names of the processed log data files 210 and the date and time whenthe log data file 210 was processed.

In certain embodiments in which the method 100 is performed using a Unixor Unix-like operating system (e.g., Linux), the total log data file 212can be created by a process invoked from cron at a scheduled time eachday (e.g., 8:00 AM). For example, a Java module reads the names of allthe log data files 210 in the directory (e.g., log dump directory) inwhich the log data files 210 are stored. The module then removes the logdata files 210 which are listed in the processed list file 290, leavingonly the log data files 210 which have not yet been processed. For eachlog data file 210 to be processed, the module uncompresses the log datafile 210 into a working directory and reads the log data file 210line-by-line, tokenizing the line, concatenating the fields UserID,Timestamp, SiteID, and any other desired fields, and appends the lineinto the total log data file 212. After merging all of the log datalines 200 into the total log data file 212, the module sorts the totallog data file 212 as described above to create the sorted total log datafile 254. In certain embodiments, about one to ten resultant sortedfiles are created each day, each having about 5 to 10 million lines inCSV format. The sorted total log data file 254 of certain embodimentscontains the record of visits by the anonymous users to the websites 20which is subsequently used in the determination of the demographicprofiles of the anonymous users.

Website Profile

In certain embodiments, a website profile comprising demographiccharacteristics of each website 20 of the predetermined group ofwebsites can be provided in various ways in the operational block 140 ofthe method 100. The demographic characteristics of a website 20 areexpressed in the website profile of certain embodiments as theprobabilities that a random user visiting the website 20 is in one ormore demographic subgroups of one or more demographic categories. Forexample, in certain embodiments, the demographic categories can include,but are not limited to, age, gender, education level, ethnicity, incomelevel, type of occupation, marital status, household size, presence,number, and ages of children in the household, and number and types ofpets in the household. FIG. 8 shows example demographic subgroups ofsome demographic categories (e.g., gender, age, annual income,ethnicity, household size, education level) in accordance with certainembodiments described herein. Other demographic subgroups are alsocompatible with certain embodiments described herein.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an example process 400 for providing thewebsite profile in accordance with certain embodiments described herein.In an operational block 410, the process 400 comprises providing aplurality of user demographic profiles for a predetermined group ofusers. In an operational block 420, the process 400 further comprisesgenerating a second record of visits by the predetermined group of usersto the predetermined group of websites. In an operational block 430, theprocess 400 further comprises calculating the website profile using theplurality of user demographic profiles and the second record of visits.The user demographic profiles of certain embodiments compriseinformation regarding the demographic subgroups in which the user is amember.

Visits by Non-Anonymous Users to Derive Website Profiles

In certain embodiments, the users of the predetermined group of usersare non-anonymous and providing the plurality of user demographicprofiles in the operational block 410 comprises providing informationobtained from the users of the predetermined group of users regardingthe demographic profiles of the users of the predetermined group ofusers. For example, the users of the predetermined group of users can beusers that have voluntarily submitted their user demographic profiles,so the users are therefore non-anonymous. Such users may provide theirinformation in response to a survey, registration procedure, or inexchange for access or something of value to the user (e.g., computersecurity software, internet data storage, virus scanning, chances to wincash and prizes). In certain embodiments, the non-anonymous users mayalso allow their web browsing history to be monitored and recorded aswell. Thus, in certain such embodiments, providing the plurality of userdemographic profiles and the second record of visits by thenon-anonymous users does not require substantial calculations or furtherprocedures.

However, the user demographic profiles provided by the users themselvesmight not be sufficiently accurate. According to industry estimates, upto 36% of registrants submit inaccurate information on theirregistration forms. A recent analysis has also shown that about 86% ofregistered users do not disclose their gender information while fillinga registration form, and about 25% of users give incorrect genderinformation, with about 22% of men giving incorrect gender informationand about 35% of women giving incorrect gender information. In addition,the pool of users voluntarily submitting their user demographic profilesis typically only a small fraction of the total pool of users, andreliance on such a small sampling to approximate the total pool of userscan result in inaccuracies as well.

Visits by Anonymous Users to Derive Website Profiles

In certain embodiments, the users of the predetermined group of usersare anonymous and providing the plurality of user demographic profilesin the operational block 410 comprises assigning at least some of theusers of the predetermined group of users to one or more demographicsubgroups based on known or derived demographic profiles of the websitesvisited by these users. In certain embodiments, the assigned users areselected from web traversal history files obtained from internet serviceproviders (ISPs). These web traversal history files contain lists ofusers and the URLs of the websites visited by the listed users. Incertain embodiments, each web traversal history file received from anISP contains the web traversal history of 600,000 or more users of theISP for that day, and 60 to 200 web traversal history files can bereceived from the various ISPs each day.

Web traversal history files can be received from the ISPs on a regularbasis (e.g., daily) and can have the date on which the file was preparedby the ISP and an identification of the ISP in the filename. Sizes forthe web traversal history files can be in the range between 8 GB to 10GB, although other sizes are also compatible with certain embodimentsdescribed herein. In certain embodiments, each web traversal historyfile contains web traversal data of about 600,000 users with about 70million lines (about 120 lines per user), with the lines correspondingto a given website scattered throughout the web traversal history file.

The web traversal history files of certain embodiments include aplurality of lines each having a plurality of fields. In certainembodiments, only some of these fields are used in the subsequentanalysis, and some of these fields are ignored. The fields used in thesubsequent analysis can include, but are not limited to: UserID,EpochTime, Delta, and URL. UserID is a unique identification stringprovided by the ISP to identify the user, and URL is the URL as sent bythe user's computer to the ISP. EpochTime is the number of seconds thathad elapsed between the moment the user first accessed the URL and apredetermined moment (e.g., Jan. 1, 1970 midnight, which is used as anindustry standard). In certain embodiments, the EpochTime is set by theuser's computer, so it may be incorrect. In certain such embodiments,subsequent analysis is performed assuming that the EpochTime provides acorrect time and an incorrect date. Delta is the amount of time that theuser spent on the website identified by the URL field.

In certain embodiments, a daily web traversal history file is createdwhich contains all the data of the individual web traversal historyfiles received from the ISPs for a given day. Such a daily web traversalhistory file can be created once a day and can be given a filename whichincludes the date corresponding to the data therein. In certainembodiments in which the individual web traversal history files do notcontain the UserID, EpochTime, Delta, and URL fields in the expectedorder, these fields can be placed in the expected order in the daily webtraversal history file. In certain embodiments, the daily web traversalhistory file can be used to create a sorted daily web traversal historyfile 440 in which the lines are sorted by UserID to aggregate the linescorresponding to a particular UserID together. Such a sorted daily webtraversal history file 440 has the same number of lines and is of thesame size as the daily web traversal history file, and can be given afilename which includes the date corresponding to the data therein.

In certain embodiments, the sorted daily web traversal history file 440is created using a similar sorting scheme as described above with regardto the sorted total log data file 254. Such a sorting scheme, as used incertain embodiments, advantageously improves the overall time of thesorting process by about 50% as compared to other sorting schemes. Incertain embodiments, the sorting method advantageously allows up toabout 32 GB of data to be sorted on a computer with 4 GB orrandom-access memory (RAM). By ensuring that the merging routine isexecuted in the desired order, the merging routine of certainembodiments results in a resultant sorted file.

FIG. 10A shows an example sorted daily web traversal history file 440 inaccordance with certain embodiments described herein. The entries of theunused fields (e.g., in Col2, Col3, Col4) are shown in FIG. 10A as Xs.In certain embodiments, the sorted daily web traversal history file 440is filtered to remove unused data, and a “clean” version of the sorteddaily web traversal history file is created. FIG. 10B shows an example“clean” sorted daily web traversal history file 442 in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein. The lines of the “clean” file 442contain the UserID, EpochTime, Delta, and WebsiteName fields. The datain the UserID, EpochTime, and Delta fields in the “clean” file 442 areunchanged from the data in the corresponding fields in the sorted dailyweb traversal history file 440. The data in the WebsiteName field isderived from the data in the URL field of the sorted daily web traversalhistory file 440, but much of the data in the URL field is unused incertain embodiments described herein, so it is removed to create theWebsiteName field. For example, the prefixes (e.g., “http://”, “www”,“www1”, etc.), spaces, and the portion after the first single hash (“/”)are removed, thereby leaving only the website name. In certainembodiments, the “clean” file 442 is about 2.5 GB in size, which can beabout 40% of the size of the daily web traversal history file 440.

Using Skewed Websites to Derive Profiled User Demographic Profiles

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of an example process 450 for assigning the usersof the predetermined group of users to one or more demographic subgroupsin accordance with certain embodiments described herein. In anoperational block 460, the process 450 comprises generating a thirdrecord of visits by the predetermined group of users to a predeterminedgroup of skewed websites. Each skewed website has a known websiteprofile skewed towards at least one demographic subgroup of the one ormore demographic categories. In an operational block 470, the process450 further comprises analyzing the third record of visits to generateassignments of at least some of the users of the predetermined group ofusers to one or more demographic subgroups of the one or moredemographic categories. In an operational block 480, the process 450further comprises providing the assignments of the at least some of theusers of the predetermined group of users to the one or more demographicsubgroups of the one or more demographic categories.

In certain embodiments, the website profile of a skewed websitecomprises a plurality of probabilities that a random user visiting theskewed website is a member of one or more demographic subgroups. Forexample, FIG. 12A shows the contents of a listing 490 of websites (e.g.,between 200 and 600 websites) skewed towards one or more age groups(labeled AgeGroup 1 to AgeGroup7). For example, as shown in FIG. 12A,the probability that a random user visiting the “littleswimmers.com”website is in AgeGroup1 is 0%, the probability that the random user isin AgeGroup2 is 17.27%, the probability that the random user is inAgeGroup3 is 55.4%, and so forth. FIG. 12B shows the contents of alisting 492 of websites skewed towards one gender or the other. Forexample, as shown in FIG. 12B, the probability that a random uservisiting the “homecafe.com” website is male is 5.24%.

In certain embodiments, a ethnicity-skewed website is one in which thetraffic on the website is substantially exclusively from ethnicsubgroup. For example, the website profile of the website“foro.univision.com” has the following ditribution: Caucasian 0.093;African-American 0.010; Asian 0.006; and Hispanic 0.891. Therefore,visits by a user to the website “foro.univision.com” can be used incertain embodiments as an indication that the user is Hispanic. Incertain embodiments, online population distributions of demographicgroups as provided by sources such as comScore, iMedia Connection,eMarketer, etc. can be used as well to assign users into variousdemographic subgroups based on their web traversal history data.

As used herein, the term “skewed website” has its broadest reasonablemeaning, including but not limited to, a website having a significantlyhigher probability of a random user of the website being in onedemographic subgroup than in another demographic subgroup of the samedemographic category. For example, in certain embodiments, a website isconsidered to be gender-skewed if one of the two genders has aprobability greater or equal to 80%. In certain embodiments, a websiteis considered to be skewed towards a particular demographic subgroup ifthe probability of the user being a member of the subgroup is higherthan the probability of a random Internet user being in the subgroup.

In certain embodiments, the probabilities of the website profiles of theskewed websites are obtained from an internet marketing research company(e.g., comScore, Inc. of Reston, Va. or Alexa Internet of San Francisco,Calif.) that provides marketing data and services to companies or bymanual research. Such companies maintain a group of users who havemonitoring software (e.g., PermissionResearch or OpinionSquare)installed on their computers, and the Internet browsing histories ofthese users are tracked to determine the website profiles of the skewedwebsites.

In certain embodiments, generating the third record of visits by thepredetermined group of users to a predetermined group of skewed websitesin the operational block 460 comprises analyzing the “clean” sorteddaily web traversal history file 442 to extract data regarding visits byat least some of the users to skewed websites and creating a skewedwebsite traversal history file 500. FIG. 13 shows an example skewedwebsite traversal history file 500 in accordance with certainembodiments described herein. Each line of the skewed website traversalhistory file 500 of certain embodiments corresponds to a unique UserIDand contains fields with data regarding the visits of the particularuser to age-skewed and gender-skewed websites. Other forms of the skewedwebsite traversal history file 500 (e.g., containing data regardingvisits to websites skewed with regard to other demographic categories)are also compatible with certain embodiments described herein.

As shown in FIG. 13, in certain embodiments, data for the followingfields are provided for each user (identified by the unique UserID):

-   -   TSAgeGrp1-7: Time spent by the user on websites skewed for males        in AgeGroup1 through AgeGroup7;    -   TSAgeSkewed: Total time spent by the user on age-skewed        websites;    -   TSMale: Total time spent by the user on male-skewed websites;    -   TSFemale: Total time spent by the user on female-skewed        websites;    -   nLines: Number of lines in the “clean” sorted daily web        traversal history file 442 for the user corresponding to        gender-skewed websites;    -   nLineMale: Number of lines in the “clean” sorted daily web        traversal history file 442 that correspond to visits by the user        to male-skewed websites;    -   nLineFemale: Number of lines in the “clean” sorted daily web        traversal history file 442 that correspond to visits by the user        to female-skewed websites;    -   nLinesAge: Number of lines in the “clean” sorted daily web        traversal history file 442 that correspond to visits by the user        to age-skewed websites.        While these fields are shown in FIG. 13 to be in two separate        lines for each UserID, in certain embodiments, each user is        represented by a single line. The skewed website traversal        history file 500 of certain embodiments has a size of about 50        MB and contains data regarding 600,000 to 700,000 users. In        certain embodiments, these fields are used to calculate the        probabilities of a user belonging to a particular demographic        category.

In certain embodiments, generating the third record of visits in theoperational block 460 further comprises creating an aggregate skewedwebsite traversal history file. This aggregate skewed website traversalhistory file can contain the aggregated data of all the users in theskewed website traversal history files 500 received daily from the ISPsover a predetermined period of time (e.g., over the past 180 days). Incertain embodiments in which 100-120 ISPs are providing websitetraversal history files, the aggregate skewed website traversal historyfile can contain the aggregate data for about 2.4 million UserIDs andcan have a size of about 150 MB. The lines and fields of the aggregateskewed website traversal history file can be similar to those of theskewed website traversal history file 500.

In certain embodiments, analyzing the third record of visits in theoperational block 470 comprises analyzing the aggregate skewed websitetraversal history file to generate assignments of at least some of theusers to one or more demographic subgroups of the one or moredemographic categories. In certain embodiments, the users that are thesubject of these assignments (the profiled users) are selected to bethose users with website traversal histories satisfying predeterminedcriteria. In certain embodiments, the profiled users can be selected, atleast in part, to be those users that have spent at least apredetermined amount of time on skewed websites. For example, in certainembodiments, if a user has spent less than 600 seconds on gender-skewedwebsites and less than 600 seconds on age-skewed websites, the user isnot a profiled user and is ignored at this stage of the analysis. Incertain embodiments, only visits that are greater than a predeterminedthreshold (e.g., 20 seconds) in length are considered for furtheranalysis since visits shorter than the threshold might be due to apop-up or indicative of lack of interest by the user. In certainembodiments, if a user visited a skewed website only on one day, thevisit is not used for profiling, unless the visit was longer than apredetermined period of time (e.g., 40 seconds).

In certain embodiments, the profiled users are selected, at least inpart, from the total list of users by identifying users who activelyaccess the web with sufficient activity on a regular basis. In certainembodiments, a stable user is defined as one who is active at least oncea week in a sample data of four consecutive weeks. The process ofidentifying a set of stable users can be executed on a regular basis.For example, the set of stable users can be identified weekly for afour-week window on a rolling basis. For every window of four weeks, theremaining processes described herein can be executed for the set ofstable users identified in this window. In certain embodiments, the setof stable users is identified to facilitate demographic analysis at dayand day-part (e.g., hourly) levels.

The demographics (e.g., age group and gender) of the profiled users areestimated using the time spent by the users on a skewed website and theskewness of the website for a particular demography. In certainembodiments, the probability of a user belonging to a particulardemographic subgroup of one or more demographic categories is calculatedusing a weighted average formula:GProbUser=Σ(TSG*GProbSite)/Σ(Time Spent on all skewed sites),  (1)where GProbUser is the probability of the user being in the particulardemographic subgroup G, TSG is the time spent by the user on the skewedwebsite for the demographic subgroup G, and GProbSite is the probabilityof the particular demographic subgroup for the skewed website.Similarly, in certain embodiments, the number of visits by the user toskewed websites, as recorded by the number of lines in the aggregateskewed website traversal history file, can be used to calculateprobabilities of the user being a member of one or more demographicsubgroups. In certain embodiments, both the time spent by a user and thenumber of visits by a user to the skewed websites can be used tocalculate the probabilities of the user being a member of one or moredemographic subgroups.

In certain embodiments, this calculation is performed on a regular basisusing newer web traversal history data of the users. The probabilitiesfor a given user appearing in different web traversal history files areaggregated together in certain embodiments. In certain embodiments, theaggregate probabilities are generated using the following formula:NCumProb=(CumProb*AvgTS*(N−1)+(NewProb*NewTS))/(AvgTS*(N−1)+NewTS),  (2)where N is the total number of web traversal history files in which theuser is present, CumProb is the cumulative probability from the previousweb traversal history files, AvgTS is the average time spent by the useron skewed websites in the previous web traversal history files, NewProbis the probability calculated from the latest web traversal historyfile, NewTS is the time spent by the user on skewed websites in thelatest web traversal history file, NcumProb is the aggregate probabilityincorporating the results from all of the web traversal history files,and NAvgTS is the average time spent by the user on skewed websites forall of the web traversal history files, and is equal to(AvgTS*(N−1)+NewTS)/N.

The output of this calculation for the various demographic subgroupsprovides an estimate of the demography of the profiled user withreasonable certainty. In certain embodiments, this estimate is used togenerate an assignment of the profiled user to one or more demographicsubgroups. For example, if the probability of a user belonging to aparticular demographic subgroup is greater than a predeterminedthreshold, then the user can be assigned to that demographic subgroup,thereby becoming a profiled user. The threshold for each demographicsubgroup can be set by a trade-off between accurate demographicestimation and profiling a large number of users. In certainembodiments, the user is assigned to a gender subgroup (e.g., male orfemale) if the probability of the user being a member of the subgroup isgreater than 80%. In certain embodiments, the user is assigned to an agegroup subgroup (e.g., 0-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-64, 65+) if theprobability of the user being a member of the subgroup is greater than55%. In certain embodiments, the user is assigned to an ethnicitysubgroup (e.g., Caucasian, African American, Asian American, Hispanic)if the probability of the user being a member of the subgroup is greaterthan 80%. In certain embodiments, the user is assigned to an incomelevel subgroup if the probability of the user being a member of thesubgroup is greater than 55%. In certain embodiments, the user isassigned to an education level subgroup if the probability of the userbeing a member of the subgroup is greater than 55%. In certainembodiments, the user is assigned to a presence of children subgroup ifthe probability of the user being a member of the subgroup is greaterthan 80%. Other probability thresholds for these and other demographiccategories are also compatible with certain embodiments describedherein.

For example, each of 120 web traversal history files can contain the webtraversal history of about 600,000 users per day, and all the webtraversal history files together can contain about 2,000,000 distinctusers. Assume that 100 websites have skewed website profiles with regardto gender (e.g., websites W001 to W040 are male-specific and websitesW041 to W100 are female-specific). Out of the 2,000,000 users listed inthe web traversal history files, if there are about 100,000 users thatspend more than a predetermined threshold amount of time per day onaverage on websites W001 to W100 with more than 75% of this time spenton websites W001 to W040, then these 100,000 users are most likely maleusers. Similarly, out of the 2,000,000 users listed in the web traversalhistory files, if there are about 60,000 users that spend more than apredetermined threshold amount of time per day on average on websitesW001 to W100 with 75% of this time spent on websites W041 to W100, thenthese 60,000 users are most likely female users. Thus, the genders of160,000 users of the total 2,000,000 users have been estimated withreasonable accuracy and these profiled users can be assigned to theirparticular gender subgroups. For users who have spent less than thepredetermined threshold amount of time per day on average on thegender-skewed websites, or have spent less than 75% of their time ongender-skewed websites on either male- or female-skewed websites, thenthe gender of the user remains unassigned.

Similarly, for a user that spends more than a predetermined thresholdamount of time per day on average on age-skewed websites with more than40% of the user's time spent on websites skewed towards a particular agesubgroup, then the profiled user is estimated to be a member of that agesubgroup. For users who have spent less than the predetermined thresholdamount of time per day on average on the age-skewed websites, or havespent less than 40% of their time on age-skewed websites on any one ofthe age-skewed websites, then the age group of the user remainsunassigned.

In certain embodiments, some websites are identified as being skewedwith respect to ethnicity. Various ethnic subgroups have dedicatedportals and the fact that a user accesses one of these portals can beused to identify the user as a member of the ethnic subgroup. Forexample, if a user accesses an ethnicity-skewed website for more than apredetermined amount of time (e.g., 20 seconds to eliminate popupissues), then the user can be assigned that ethnicity with apredetermined probability (e.g., 0.80). In certain embodiments in whichthe user belongs to more than one ethnicity subgroup, the web traversalhistory of the user is analyzed to determine if the user has visitedwebsites skewed towards one ethnicity subgroup more than others, and theuser is assigned to the ethnicity of the most-visited ethnicity-skewedwebsites.

FIG. 14 shows an example user demographic assignment file 510 in whichthese assignments are expressed in accordance with certain embodimentsdescribed herein. The user demographic assignment file 510 contains oneline per profiled user. Each line comprises a plurality of fieldscorresponding to the assigned demographic subgroups of the profileduser. As shown in FIG. 14, the gender field can have three differentvalues: “M” denotes a user that has been predicted or assigned to bemale; “F” denotes a user that has been predicted or assigned to befemale; and “-” denotes a user for which the gender was not predicted orassigned (e.g., the user spent too little time web browsing and/or toolittle time on the gender-skewed websites). As shown in FIG. 14, the agegroup field can have eight different values: “1” through “7” denote auser that has been predicted or assigned to AgeGroup1 through AgeGroup7,respectively; and “−1” denotes a user for which the age group was notpredicted or assigned (e.g., the user spent too little time web browsingand/or too little time on the age-skewed websites). In certain otherembodiments, at least some of the profiled users can be predicted orassigned to be members of subgroups of other demographic categories aswell. In certain embodiments, at least some of the profiled users can bepredicted or assigned to be members of subgroups of multiple demographiccategories (e.g., predicted or assigned to be an African-American malewith an annual income greater than $150,000).

Using Profiled Users to Obtain Website Profiles

In certain embodiments, the user demographic profiles of the profiledusers can be used to calculate the website profiles of other websitesbeyond the skewed websites discussed above. Certain embodimentsdescribed below focus on using the gender and age group assignments ofthe profiled users to determine the gender and the age group profiles ofthe websites. However, other demographic categories and combinations ofdemographic categories are also compatible with certain embodimentsdescribed herein.

For example, the user demographic profiles of the profiled users can beused to calculate the gender composition of random users visiting 20,000websites (W00001 to W20000). As discussed above, the profiled users caninclude 160,000 users whose gender has been assigned (e.g., 100,000assigned as male, 60,000 assigned as female) based on their web browsingof gender-skewed websites. If 40,000 of these gender-profiled usersvisited website W00001, with 10,000 male-profiled users and 30,000female-profiled users, then the website profile of website W00001 can becalculated to be 25% male and 75% female. Similar calculations can bemade for other demographic categories to calculate the website profilesof the predetermined group of websites.

In another example, the number of visiting profiled users and the timespent by the profiled users can be used to determine the websiteprofile. A dataset for visits to an example website “aaroads.com” over atwo-month period indicates that the website was visited by: 56 Caucasianusers for a total time of 21340 seconds; 10 African-American users for atotal time of 3449 seconds; 9 Hispanic users for a total time of 2830seconds; 2 Asian users for a total time of 634 seconds; and 1 other userfor a total time of 104 seconds. The proportion of time spent by eachethnicity subgroup and the proportion of visitors in each ethnicitysubgroup can be calculated (e.g., Caucasians are 72% of the visitors andspent 75% of the total time; African-Americans are 13% of the visitorsand spent 12% of the total time; Hispanics are 11% of the visitors andspent 10% of the total time; Asians are 3% of the visitors and spent 2%of the total time; and others are 1% of the visitors and spent close to0% of the total time). An average of proportions based on both thenumber of visitors and the total time spent can be used to calculate thedistribution of ethnicity subgroups on the website to be: 0.735Caucasian; 0.125 African-American; 0.105 Hispanic; 0.025 Asian; and 0.01other. These proportions can be compared to the overall distribution ofethnicities on the Internet to identify the relative skewness of thewebsite for ethnicity. For example, if the distribution of ethnicitieson the Internet is approximately 70% Caucasian, 12% African-American,12% Hispanic, 4% Asian, and 2% other, then the website aaroads.com doesnot appear to be highly skewed towards one ethnicity, but is orientedtowards the Caucasian and African-American ethnicity subgroups since theproportion of visitors and time spent are higher for these subgroupsthan for the Internet population.

In certain embodiments, while the non-Caucasian ethnicity subgroups havededicated websites which can be used to identify members of thesesubgroups, Caucasians do not have a significant number of such websites.In certain such embodiments, another technique is used to identifyCaucasian users. For example, an example set of profiled users containsthe following: 3502 African-Americans, 3804 Hispanics, 1254 Asians, and651 other, while the ethnic distribution of the Internet population isapproximately 70% Caucasian, 12% African-American, 12% Hispanic, 4%Asian, and 2% other. To identify which subset of the set of profiledusers represents their respective proportion optimally, the subsets aredivided by their ethnic Internet proportions, and the minimum value ischosen to ascertain the bias of the set of profiled users against theoverall Internet distribution. For example, such a calculation appliedto the example set yields 3502/12=292 for African-Americans, 3804/12=317for Hispanics, 1254/4=314 for Asians, and 651/2=326 for others. Thiscalculation yields the lowest value for African-Americans, so the numberof African-Americans in the example set of profiled users is taken to beclosest to the Internet distribution, and an unbiased distribution basedon the set of profiled users is calculated to be: 292*70=20428Caucasians, 292*12=3502 African-Americans, 292*12=3502 Hispanics,292*4=1167 Asians, and 292*2=584 other. In certain embodiments, a set ofethnicity-profiled users can be compared to such a calculated unbiaseddistribution and weights can be calculated. For example, in this exampleset, the weight of Hispanics is 3502/3804=0.921, the weight of Asians is1167/1254=0.931, and the weight of others is 584/651=0.897. In certainembodiments, these weights can be used as coefficients in thecalculations of the total time spent and the number of visitorsdescribed above.

In certain embodiments, the traffic of the advertisement network towhich advertisements are provided may not be representative of theentire Internet demographic distribution. In certain such embodiments,significantly more users belonging to a particular demographic group canbe identified. For example, if the proportion of users is significantlyskewed towards a few demographic groups, the threshold for assigning ananonymous user to a particular demographic group can be adjustedproportionately so that a fair proportion of users are classified intoeach possible demographic group while still achieving accurateprofiling. In certain embodiments, this adjustment can be done byidentifying the most under-represented demographic group. For thatgroup, the number of users X in that group exceeding a fixed thresholdare assigned that demographic group. Based on the number X, the numberof members Y assigned to the remaining demographic group can becalculated and used as a customized threshold for each demographicgroup.

FIG. 15 shows the estimated distribution of various demographicsubgroups for various example websites as compared to the expecteddistribution on the Internet. Each of the example websites listed inFIG. 15 are skewed to some level as compared to the demographic profileof a random Internet user. For example, the website “en.wikipedia.com”is skewed towards male users and the website “fantasysports.yahoo.com”is skewed towards users with an annual income of $60-75K. In certainembodiments, the level of skewness of a given website with regard to agiven demographic subgroup can be expressed as the ratio of theprobability that a random user visiting the website is a member of thedemographic subgroup and the probability that a random user on theInternet is a member of the demographic subgroup. For example, usingthis calculation for skewness, the skewness of the website“en.wikipedia.com” towards males is about (70.42/49.42)=1.42 and theskewness of the website “fantasysports.yahoo.com” towards users with anannual income of $60-75K is about (34.41/12.20)=2.82. Other measures ofskewness are also compatible with certain embodiments described herein.

In certain embodiments, one or more of the demographic categories (e.g.,annual income) may not significantly influence the behavior of usersbrowsing the Internet, so it is possible that there may not be asufficient number of websites skewed towards one or more subgroups ofthese demographic categories. In certain such embodiments, use of theweb traversal histories can be supplemented by other information (e.g.,web search terms used by the user, obtained from the cookies file) toassign the user to a particular subgroup. In certain embodiments inwhich a website having a skewed profile has low traffic or where thenumber of visitors to the website in a particular subgroup is low, eachsubgroup can be approached separately and the calculation for eachcombination of subgroups can be isolated from other subgroups toadvantageously avoid misrepresentations of data. A user's interest inparticular categories of websites can demonstrate, indicate, or implywhether the user belongs to a particular demographic group. For example,a user who is interested in automotive and sports category websiteswould be highly likely to be a male. Similarly, interest in automotive,business, and travel could demonstrate, indicate, or imply that the useris in a higher income segment. From the ISP data, certain embodimentsfirst identify the categorical interests of users. Correlating theuser's demographic attributes with their categories of strong interestusing classification approaches (e.g., Association Rules and CART(Classification & Regression Trees)), certain demographic attributes ofa user can be identified.

FIG. 16A shows an example daily website profile file 520 in accordancewith certain embodiments described herein. Each line of the dailywebsite profile file 520 contains a field identifying the website(“WebsiteName”), a field identifying an hour of the day (“Daypart”), anda plurality of fields corresponding to various demographic subgroups.Each demographic subgroup field includes data corresponding to thenumber of profiled users visiting the website during the identified hourof the day that are members of the corresponding demographic subgroup.In certain embodiments, the website profile file 520 includes dataregarding 20,000 websites and has a size of about 23 MB with about20,000*24=480,000 lines. In certain embodiments, the name of the dailywebsite profile file 520 contains an indication of the day to which thefile corresponds.

The example daily website profile file 520 of FIG. 16A comprises aseries of lines for the website “geocities.com” for a particular day.The Daypart field has a value of “1” to “24”, where “1” corresponds to00:00 am to 00:59 am (the first hour of the day), “2” corresponds to01:00 am to 01:59 am (the second hour of the day), and so forth. Thefields “MaleAge1” through “MaleAge7” indicate the number of profiledusers visiting “geocities.com” during the hour of the day indicated bythe Daypart field who were male and in AgeGroup1 through AgeGroup7. Thefields “FemaleAge1” through “FemaleAge7” indicate the number of profiledusers visiting “geocities.com” during the hour of the day indicated bythe Daypart field who were female and in AgeGroup1 through AgeGroup7.While these fields are shown in FIG. 16A to be in two separate lines foreach website and hour of the day, in certain embodiments, each websiteand hour of the day is represented by a single line. In certainembodiments, the fields within the website profile file 520 arepopulated by scanning the “clean” sorted daily web traversal historyfile 442 to obtain a list of the websites visited by at least oneprofiled user and to tally which users visited these websites and atwhat hour of day this visit occurred. For example, if a user profiled tobe a male in AgeGroup1 has visited a particular website during aparticular hour of the day, the field of the website profile file 520corresponding to the website, hour of day, and MaleAge1 is incrementedby one, and scanning the “clean” sorted daily web traversal history file442 continues.

In certain embodiments, an aggregate website profile file 530 is createdfor each day of the week. The name of each aggregate website profilefile 530 can include an indication of the day of the week (e.g., 0 to 6corresponding to Monday through Sunday). Each of the seven aggregatewebsite profile files 530 contains the aggregate data for visits by theprofiled users to the various websites for the corresponding day of theweek. For example, for a predetermined period (e.g., one month or 28days), the aggregate website profile file for Monday comprises theaggregated data for all Mondays of the corresponding predeterminedperiod. FIG. 16B shows an aggregate website profile file 530 for allMondays during the period of November 1st to December 25th.

In certain embodiments, a daily website forecast file is created foreach day of the week. The fields of the daily website forecast fileinclude the WebsiteName, the Day (e.g., Monday=1, Sunday=7),CountMaleAge1 through CountMaleAge7, PercentMaleAge1 throughPercentMaleAge7, CountFemaleAge1 through CountFemaleAge7,PercentFemaleAge1 through PercentFemaleAge7, WeightMaleAge1 throughWeightMaleAge7, and WeightFemaleAge1 through WeightFemaleAge7. For eachwebsite, there are seven lines in the daily website forecast file (onefor each Day). The CountMaleAgeN and CountFemaleAgeN fields (where Ndenotes the age groups 1 through 7) are obtained directly from the sevenaggregate website profile files 530. The PercentMaleAgeN andPercentFemaleAgeN fields are calculated by dividing the corresponding“Count” field by the total number of counts in the “Count” fields. The“Percent” fields represent the probability that a random user visitingthe website on the corresponding day is in the corresponding gender andage group subgroup corresponding to the “Percent” field. These fieldscan be used to determine the probabilities that a random user visitingthe website on a particular day of the week is male, female, and/or in aselected one of the age groups. In certain embodiments, the weightfields are derived from the percentage fields. In certain suchembodiments, the weight fields can be omitted. In certain embodiments,other fields corresponding to other demographic categories can also beprovided.

In certain embodiments, an hourly website forecast file is created foreach day of the week and for each hour of the day. The fields of thehourly website forecast file include the WebsiteName, the Day (e.g.,Monday=1, Sunday=7), the DayPart (e.g., hour of the day, indicated by 1through 24), CountMaleAge1 through CountMaleAge7, PercentMaleAge1through PercentMaleAge7, CountFemaleAge1 through CountFemaleAge7,PercentFemaleAge1 through PercentFemaleAge7, WeightMaleAge1 throughWeightMaleAge7, and WeightFemaleAge1 through WeightFemaleAge7. For eachwebsite, there are 7*24=168 lines in the hourly website forecast file.The “Percent” fields represent the probability that a random uservisiting the website on the corresponding day and hour of day is in thecorresponding gender and age group subgroup corresponding to the“Percent” field. These fields can be used to determine the probabilitiesthat a random user visiting the website on a particular day of the weekand hour of day is male, female, and/or in a selected one of the agegroups. In certain embodiments, other fields corresponding to otherdemographic categories can also be provided.

For example, the daily website forecast file for the hypotheticalwebsite “rentdvd.com” could include data indicative of the followingdemographic profile of visitors to the website on a Monday:

-   -   Gender: Male: 32%; Female: 68%.    -   Age: 0-17: 0%; 18-24: 12%; 25-35: 64%; 36-50: 22%; 51-65: 2%;        65+: 0%.    -   Annual Income: $0-25K: 2%; $25-50K: 11%; $50-75K: 46%; $75-100K:        21%; $100-150K: 11%; $150K+: 9%.    -   Ethnicity: Caucasian: 34%; African American: 44%; Asian: 17%;        Hispanic: 3%.    -   Household Size: 1 Person: 7%; 2 People: 16%; 3-4 People: 37%; 5+        People: 40%.    -   Education Level: Some High School: 4%; High School Degree: 12%;        Some College: 16%; Associates Degree: 8%; Bachelors Degree: 36%;        Graduate Degree: 12%; Other: 12%.        In certain other embodiments, the website can be profiled in        other demographic categories as well.

In certain embodiments, the daily website forecast file or the hourlywebsite forecast file can be used to characterize a target audience ofadvertisements for the website. The target audience of advertisementsfor the website can be defined to be members of demographic subgroupswith percentages in the website forecast file that are greater than apredetermined threshold. For example, for the rentdvd.com example above,using a predetermined threshold of 35%, the target audience ofadvertisements for the rentdvd.com website can be defined to be female,age between 25 and 35, annual income of $50-75K, caucasian or africanamerican, household size of more than 3 people, and having a bachelorsdegree. Each of these demographic subgroups had a percentage in theexample website forecast file cited above larger than the 35% threshold.In other words, users in demographic subgroups with percentages largerthan the threshold can be considered users who like to use therentdvd.com website, and the owners of the rentdvd.com website would beinterested in placing advertisements where such users would view theiradvertisement. The website forecast files can also be used tocharacterize various websites at various portions of the day todetermine where and when members of the target audience are visitingother websites to determine where and when to place advertisements(e.g., the advertisements of rentdvd.com).

In certain embodiments, the information in the website forecast filescan be expressed as a website composition vector 600. FIG. 17A shows anexample website composition vector 600 in accordance with certainembodiments described herein. Each element of the website compositionvector 600 corresponds to the fraction of users visiting the websitethat are in the various subgroups of the gender and age groupdemographic categories. In certain other embodiments, the websitecomposition vector 600 can contain elements corresponding to subgroupsor combinations of subgroups of other demographic categories.

In certain embodiments, the website composition vectors 600 of variouswebsites are grouped together in a website composition file having aplurality of lines, and each line having a plurality of fields. FIG. 17Bshows a listing 610 of the fields of each line of an example websitecomposition file in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein. Besides the SiteID and SiteName fields, each line comprises aplurality of numerical fields corresponding to the fraction of usersvisiting the website being members of the corresponding subgroups. Thewebsite composition file of certain embodiments has one line per website(e.g., 1500 lines), with each data line providing the websitecomposition vector 600 of the website.

FIG. 17C shows a listing 620 of the fields of an example daily websitecomposition file in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein. Each line of the daily website composition file has a fielddenoting the day of the week (e.g., Monday through Sunday) and thenumerical fields correspond to the percentage or fraction of usersvisiting the website during the particular day of the week being membersof the corresponding subgroups. The daily website composition file ofcertain embodiments has seven lines per website (e.g., 1500*7=10500lines), with each data line providing the website composition vector 600of the website corresponding to the particular day of the week.

FIG. 17D shows a portion of an example daily website composition file622 in accordance with certain embodiments described herein. In certainembodiments, the daily website composition file 622 is in CSV format, inwhich the first line is a header line and the subsequent lines are datalines. The numerical fields of the daily website composition file 622shown in FIG. 16D have two digits after the decimal point, although incertain other embodiments, more digits (e.g., six or more) after thedecimal point are used.

FIG. 17E shows a listing 630 of the fields of an example hourly websitecomposition file in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein. Each line of the hourly website composition file has a fielddenoting the day of the week and a field denoting the hour of the day(e.g., 1-24) and the numerical fields correspond to the fraction ofusers visiting the website during the particular day of the week and thehour of the day being members of the corresponding subgroup. The hourlywebsite composition file of certain embodiments has 7*24=168 lines perwebsite (e.g., 168*1500=about 240,000 lines), with each data lineproviding the website composition vector 600 of the websitecorresponding to the particular day of the week and hour of the day.

User Probability Vectors

In certain embodiments, the web browsing histories of the plurality ofanonymous users can be expressed in a user history file 650 having oneline per anonymous user. FIG. 18 shows a portion of an example userhistory file 650 in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein. Each line of the user history file 650 contains a UserID field,a DateCreated field, a DateUpdated field, and one or more SiteID/Countfields. The SiteID portion of the SiteID/Count field denotes a websitevisited by the anonymous user and the Count portion of the SiteID/Countfield denotes the number of times the anonymous user visited the websiteas listed in the sorted total log data file 254. In certain embodiments,each line in the user history file 650 will have an indefinite number ofSiteID/Count fields.

In certain embodiments, the probabilities that a particular anonymoususer is in the various subgroups of the demographic categories can beexpressed as a user probability vector 700. FIG. 19A shows an exampleuser probability vector 700 in accordance with certain embodimentsdescribed herein. The user probability vector 700 shown in FIG. 19A has14 fields corresponding to the probabilities that the particularanonymous user is a member of the corresponding gender and age groupsubgroups. In certain other embodiments, the user probability vector 700can contain elements corresponding to subgroups or combinations ofsubgroups of other demographic categories.

In certain embodiments, the user probability vectors 700 of millions ofanonymous users can be represented in one or more user probabilitytables 710. FIG. 19B shows a listing 720 of the fields of an exampleuser probability table 710 in accordance with certain embodimentsdescribed herein. FIG. 19C shows a portion of an example userprobability table 710 in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein. The UserID field of certain embodiments contains the useridentification data (e.g., as stored in the cookies file on theanonymous user's computer 10). The DateCreated field of certainembodiments contains the data on which the user probability vector 700for UserID was first created. The LastUpdated field of certainembodiments contains the date on which the user probability vector 700for UserID was updated most recently. The nSites field of certainembodiments contains the total number of profiled websites visited bythe UserID. For example, the nSites field can contain the number ofclicks in the sorted total log data file 254 corresponding to visits bythe UserID to profiled websites. Besides the UserID, DateCreated,LastUpdated, and nSites fields, each line comprises a plurality ofnumerical fields corresponding to the probabilities that the anonymoususer is a member of the corresponding subgroups.

The user probability table 710 of certain embodiments has one line peranonymous user, with the probability data lines providing the userprobability vector 700 of the anonymous user. In certain embodiments,the demographic profiles of millions (e.g., 50 million, 120 million, ormore than 120 million) anonymous users are calculated, so the one ormore user probability tables 710 contain 120 million or more lines ofdata, with each line having about 200 bytes of data (including spaceused for indexes). Therefore, in certain embodiments, the one or moreuser probability tables 710 have a total size of about 24 GB.

In certain embodiments, the user probability vectors 700 are partitionedamong 120 user probability tables 710 with each user probability table710 containing the user probability vectors 700 for about one millionanonymous users. In certain such embodiments, MySql tables work wellwhen the number of lines or rows is below one million, and the size ofthe table is below 1 GB. Various schemes for partitioning the userprobability vectors 700 among the user probability tables 710 arecompatible with certain embodiments described herein. In certainembodiments, hashing by prime numbers is used to create partitions withlittle variance in size among the various user probability tables 710.For example, an alphanumeric key can be used as a number of base 36 with0=0, . . . , 9=9, A=10, B=11, . . . , Z=35. The number N can beevaluated and the group number defined to be (N mod 2999) mod 120. Incertain embodiments, rather than evaluating the number N (which canresult in overflow), a shortcut formula can be used to derive (N mod2999) which uses less than 20 integer multiplications. In certainembodiments, the user probability vectors 700 are sorted while beingmerged into the user probability table 710, thereby improvingperformance by reducing processing time.

Estimated User Demographic Profile

In certain embodiments, the first record of visits by the anonymous user(e.g., as expressed by the sorted total log data file 254 or by the userhistory file 650) and the website profile comprising demographiccharacteristics of each website 20 of the predetermined group ofwebsites visited by an anonymous user (e.g., as expressed by the websitecomposition vectors 600 in the website composition file, daily websitecomposition file, or hourly website composition file) are used tocalculate an estimated user demographic profile. In certain embodiments,this estimated user demographic profile is expressed as a userprobability vector 700. For example, in certain embodiments, the dailywebsite composition file is loaded into memory into a Java hash, and thesorted total log data file 254 is also read into memory. For eachanonymous user, the corresponding lines of the sorted total log datafile 254 are read, and the lines of the daily website composition filecorresponding to the websites visited by the anonymous user are read.

In certain embodiments, upon detecting that a website visited by theanonymous user in the sorted total log data file 254 is not a profiledwebsite (e.g., the website does not have a website composition vector600 in one of the website composition files), the lines of the sortedtotal log data file 254 corresponding to that website are ignored, andthe identity of the website is recorded in a listing of websites not yetprofiled. In certain such embodiments, this listing of websites not yetprofiled has five fields: UserID (identifying the anonymous user whovisited the website), SiteID (identifying the website), Clicks (numberof visits by the anonymous user to the website), and TimeStamp (date andtime of the latest visit by the anonymous user to the website). Incertain embodiments, a maximum number (e.g., 100) of lines correspondingto a given website are kept in the listing, even if there are many more(e.g., thousands) of such lines in the sorted total log data file 254.In certain embodiments, this listing of the websites not yet profiledcan be used to identify websites to be profiled for subsequentcalculations.

In certain embodiments, the estimated user demographic profile for ananonymous user who has visited each of k profiled websites (e.g., W₁,W₂, . . . , W_(k)) a number of times (e.g., n₁, n₂, . . . , n_(k))respectively, and the k profiled websites have k corresponding websitecomposition vectors (e.g., S₁, S₂, . . . , S_(k)) is calculated usingthe following equation:

$\begin{matrix}{{{User}\mspace{14mu}{Probability}\mspace{14mu}{Vector}} = {\sum\limits_{i}{S_{i}{n_{i}/{\sum\limits_{i}{n_{i}.}}}}}} & (3)\end{matrix}$In this way, certain embodiments described herein calculate theestimated user demographic profile of an anonymous user to be a weightedaverage of the website composition vectors of the websites visited bythe anonymous user.

In certain embodiments, outlier visits by the anonymous user can beignored to produce a modified weighted average. For example, if a userhas historically visited websites that are skewed towards a particularethnicity (e.g., Caucasian), then a random visit to a websitesignificantly skewed towards another ethnicity (e.g., Asian) can beignored or its weight in the average can be reduced.

In certain embodiments, the website composition vectors 600corresponding to the demographics of random users during a particularday of the week are used in conjunction with the entries of the sortedtotal log data file 254 corresponding to visits by the anonymous userduring the particular day of the week. In certain other embodiments, thewebsite composition vectors 600 corresponding to the demographics ofrandom users during a particular day of the week and hour of the day areused in conjunction with the entries of the sorted total log data file254 corresponding to visits by the anonymous user during the particularday of the week and the particular hour of the day. In this way, certainembodiments advantageously utilize the detailed data obtained regardingthe website composition vectors 600 which reflect changes of the websitecomposition vector 600 for various days of the week and various hours ofthe day.

In certain embodiments, the estimated user demographic profiles for theanonymous users are calculated at predetermined intervals (e.g., onceevery 12 hours, once every 24 hours) and the estimated user demographicprofiles are expressed as user probability vectors 700 in a userprobability table 710 corresponding to the web browsing of the anonymoususers during the most recent interval (e.g., during the previous day).In certain embodiments, previously-calculated estimated user demographicprofiles are updated to reflect the web browsing of the anonymous usersince the previous calculation. In certain such embodiments, theestimated user demographic profile for an anonymous user is updatedusing the following equation:UPV _(Updated)=(UPV _(Previous))*(nSitesPrevious)+(UPV_(New))*(nSites_(New)),  (4)where UPV_(Previous) is the previously-existing user probability vector710, nSites_(Previous) is the cumulative number of visited websites usedin calculating UPV_(Previous), UPV_(New) is the newly-calculated userprobability vector corresponding to the web browsing of the anonymoususers during the most recent interval, and nSites_(New) is the number ofvisited websites used in calculating UPV_(New). UPV_(New) is calculatedto be equal to

$\sum\limits_{i}{S_{i}{n_{i}/{\sum\limits_{i}n_{i}}}}$for the web browsing during the most recent interval. BothUPV_(previous) and nSites_(Previous) are obtained from a previous userprobability table 710, and UPV_(New) and nSites_(New) are obtained fromthe most recent user probability table corresponding to the web browsingof the anonymous users during the most recent interval. In certainembodiments, the nSites_(Previous) and nSites_(New) values are eachnormalized to the sum of (nSites_(Previous)+nSites_(New)). In certainembodiments, the website composition vectors S_(k) of the k profiledwebsites in Equation (4) have values which have been updated since aprevious determination of the website composition vectors S_(k). Thenumber of times n_(k) in Equation (4) correspond to the number of timesthat the anonymous user has visited the profiled websites during themost recent interval. Thus, in certain embodiments, the previous userprobability vectors 700 are used as an input in a subsequent calculationof the updated user probability vectors 700.

In certain embodiments, the updated estimated user demographic profilesare recorded in an updated user probability table, wherein each line ofthe updated user probability table has a UserID field, a DateCreatedfield, a LastUpdated field, a nSites field, and a plurality of fieldscorresponding to the updated user probability vector 700 havingprobabilities that the anonymous user identified by UserID is a memberof the various subgroups of the demographic categories. In certainembodiments, user probability vectors 700 which have not been updatedfor more than a predetermined period of time (e.g., 60 days) are deletedfrom the user probability table 710 and are not included in the updateduser probability table.

For example, in certain embodiments, the previously-existing userprobability table containing the UPV_(Previous) data is compared with atable comprising the newly-calculated UPV_(New) data corresponding tothe web browsing of the anonymous users during the most recent interval.If a UserID is present in only one of the two tables, then the line forthat UserID is copied into the updated user probability table. If bothfiles have the same UserID, then the line in the updated userprobability table will have the weighted average of the UPV_(Previous)and the UPV_(New), where the weight is given by the number of websitesused in calculating the respective user probability vectors(nSites_(Previous) and nSites_(New), respectively). If the LastUpdatefield is older than the predetermined period of time (e.g., 60 days),then the line for that UserID is not copied into the updated userprobability table. In this way, certain embodiments described hereinhave an updated user probability table containing the weighted averageof the demographic profiles of the websites visited by the UserID sincethe user identification data was last installed on the user's computer.

In certain embodiments, the user probability table is a large file(e.g., about 6000 MB in size) and is stored in local storage. In certainsuch embodiments, storing the user probability table in a local storagedrive advantageously reduces the time of transferring the file between aremote server and the local storage drive, which can represent a savingsof about 2 hours of processing time. In certain such embodiments, upon acrash of the local storage drive, the data can be re-obtained by runningthe analysis again on the sorted total log data files 254 correspondingto a predetermined number of past days (e.g., a few days or a week). Incertain other embodiments, the user probability table is copied onto theremote server at the end of the process. Upon starting the calculationof an updated user probability table, the filesize of the previous userprobability table on the remote server is compared with the filesize ofthe copy on the local drive. If the filesizes are equal, the copy on thelocal drive will be considered to be the most recent version, and nocopying of the previous user probability table is performed. If thefilesizes are unequal, then the copy on the local drive will beconsidered to be stale, and the copy from the remote server will becopied onto the local drive, and this copy will be used for thesubsequent calculations.

In certain embodiments, a user demographic table 730 is created based onthe data contained in the user probability table. FIG. 20A shows aportion of an example user demographic table 730 in accordance withcertain embodiments described herein. The user demographic table 730 ofcertain embodiments contains one line per UserID and one demographicfield (“DemoDetail”) containing data regarding the demographic profileof the anonymous user identified by UserID. In certain embodiments, theDemoDetail field contains a 22-byte string, which is based on theprobabilities that the anonymous user is in the various subgroups of thedemographic categories as listed in the user probability table.

For example, in certain embodiments, a predetermined number ofdemographic groups (“DemoGroup”) are defined, and the Nth byte of theDemoDetail field provides information regarding whether the anonymoususer is a member of the corresponding DemoGroup. In certain embodiments,the Nth byte is set to “1” if the anonymous user is a member of the NthDemoGroup, as determined by the probabilities for the anonymous user inthe user probability table. FIG. 20B shows one example set 732 ofdemographic groups in accordance with certain embodiments describedherein. For example, if the probability that the anonymous user is amember of AgeGroup1 (e.g., the sum of MaleAgeGroup1 and FemaleAgeGroup1)is greater than 0.25, then the fourth byte of the DemoDetail field willbe 1, otherwise the fourth byte will be 0. As another example, if theprobability that the anonymous user is a member of either AgeGroup2 orAgeGroup3 (e.g., the sum of MaleAgeGroup2, FemaleAgeGroup2,MaleAgeGroup3, and FemaleAgeGroup3) is greater than 0.4, then thefourteenth byte of the DemoDetail field will be 1, otherwise thefourteenth byte will be 0. Other defined demographic groupscorresponding to other subgroups or combinations of subgroups of theseor other demographic categories are also compatible with certainembodiments described herein.

In certain embodiments, the number of anonymous users which wereprofiled as male, profiled as female, and with unknown gender can betabulated. Similarly, the number of anonymous users profiled to be inthe subgroups of the age group demographic category, or in the subgroupsof other demographic categories can also be tabulated. These tabulationscan be used for analytical reporting and monitoring of the systemoperation.

In certain embodiments, as the number of different websites visited bythe anonymous user increases and the frequency of the visits increases,the demographic estimates for the anonymous user will have an increasinglevel of confidence. In addition, the demographic skewness of thewebsites visited by the anonymous user will impact the level ofconfidence in the demographic estimates. For example, visits to ademographically neutral website will not significantly assist theestimation of the anonymous user's demographic profile.

In certain embodiments, the demographic profiles of the anonymous usersare used by a plurality of advertisement servers to select and provideadvertisements and/or other information to be viewed by the particularanonymous users based on their user probability vectors 700. In certainsuch embodiments, the UserIDs and the corresponding data from the userdemographic table 730 are listed in a server assignment filecorresponding to the advertisement server of the plurality ofadvertisement servers which provides advertisements viewed by theanonymous user on a set of member, client, or partner websites. Forexample, for 16 advertisement servers, the UserIDs of the anonymoususers are distributed among 16 server assignment files. Upon theadvertisement server receiving a signal (e.g., from the website)indicating that the anonymous user is visiting a website, theadvertisement server identifies the user probability vector 700 of theanonymous user, selects an advertisement based on the user probabilityvector 700, and transmits the selected advertisement to the anonymoususer's computer to be viewed by the anonymous user.

In certain embodiments, the advertisements presented to an anonymoususer via the websites that the user is visiting are tailored to appealto users having the estimated demographic profile of the anonymous user.For example, if the anonymous user is estimated to be female,advertisements tailored to appeal to females are presented to theanonymous user. In certain embodiments, the advertisements presented tothe anonymous user via the websites that the user is visiting areselected to target users having the estimated demographic profile of theanonymous user. For example, if the anonymous user is estimated to befemale, advertisements which seek to target females are presented to theanonymous user.

In certain embodiments, various combinations of the subgroups of thedemographic categories can be used to target specific audiences. Forexample, using gender (2 subgroups), age group (5 subgroups), annualincome (5 subgroups), education (4 subgroups), ethnicity (5 subgroups),number of children (3 subgroups), and occupation (6 subgroups) as thedemographic categories, there are 25,200 possible combinations of thesubgroups that can be targeted. Using many demographic categories incertain embodiments is fairly restrictive, so in certain otherembodiments, fewer demographic categories (e.g., two to four of theseven demographic categories listed above) are used to target audiences.

In certain embodiments, the demographic profile of an anonymous user isspecific to the day of the week and/or hour of the day in which theanonymous user's computer is being used to access websites. For example,the demographic profile of an anonymous user can be different forevening hours as compared to daytime hours. Certain such embodimentsadvantageously allow the demographic profile to account for differentfamily members using the user's computer at different times of the dayand/or different days of the week.

In certain embodiments, the demographic profiles of the anonymous usersvisiting a particular website are tabulated to monitor the number oftimes an advertisement has been viewed by anonymous users having thedesired demographic profile. For example, if an entity desires that anadvertisement be viewed by one million users having the profile of“males between 18 to 24 years of age” over the next 60 days, theadvertisement can be presented to anonymous users visiting one or morewebsites, and the profiles of the anonymous users actually viewing theadvertisement can be recorded. Thus, the entity can be sure that thedesired number of users having the selected profile have viewed theadvertisement.

Various embodiments have been described above. Although this inventionhas been described with reference to these specific embodiments, thedescriptions are intended to be illustrative of the invention and arenot intended to be limiting. Various modifications and applications mayoccur to those skilled in the art without departing from the true spiritand scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

1. A method of determining a user demographic profile of an anonymoususer that visits one or more websites of a predetermined group ofwebsites, the method comprising: determining whether an anonymous user'scomputer has user identification data installed thereon, saiddetermining performed upon the anonymous user visiting a website of thepredetermined group of websites, the user identification data unique tothe anonymous user; installing the user identification data on theanonymous user's computer if the anonymous user's computer does not havethe user identification data installed thereon; generating a firstrecord of visits by the anonymous user to the websites of thepredetermined group of websites; providing one or more website profilescomprising demographic characteristics of each website visited by theanonymous user of the predetermined group of websites; and calculatingan estimated user demographic profile of the anonymous user by using thefirst record of visits by the anonymous user and the one or more websiteprofiles.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user identification datacomprises between 15 and 20 bytes of data.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein installing the user identification data comprises installing acookie onto the anonymous user's computer.
 4. The method of claim 1,wherein generating the first record of visits by the anonymous user tothe websites comprises recording for each visit a date, a time, a URLaddress of the visited website, and the user identification data.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, wherein providing one or more website profilescomprises: providing a plurality of user demographic profiles for apredetermined group of users; generating a second record of visits bythe predetermined group of users to the predetermined group of websites;calculating the one or more website profiles using the plurality of userdemographic profiles and the second record of visits.
 6. The method ofclaim 5, wherein the users of the predetermined group of users arenon-anonymous, and providing the plurality of user demographic profilesfor the predetermined group of users comprises providing informationobtained from the users of the predetermined group of users regardingthe demographic profiles of the users of the predetermined group ofusers.
 7. The method of claim 5, wherein the predetermined group ofusers are anonymous, and providing the plurality of user demographicprofiles for the predetermined group of users comprises: generating athird record of visits by the predetermined group of users to apredetermined group of skewed websites, each skewed website having aknown website profile skewed towards at least one demographic subgroupof the one or more demographic categories; analyzing the third record ofvisits to generate assignments of at least some of the users of thepredetermined group of users to one or more demographic subgroups of theone or more demographic categories; and providing the assignments of theat least some of the users of the predetermined group of users to theone or more demographic subgroups of the one or more demographiccategories.
 8. The method of claim 5, wherein the one or more websiteprofiles comprise at least one website composition vector comprising aplurality of elements corresponding to a website, each elementcorresponding to a demographic subgroup of one or more demographiccategories, each element comprising a probability that a random uservisiting the website is in the demographic subgroup corresponding to theelement.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the one or more demographiccategories are selected from the group consisting of: age, gender,education level, ethnicity, income level, and presence of children inthe user's household.
 10. The method of claim 5, wherein the one or morewebsite profiles comprise a plurality of website composition vectors,each website composition vector corresponding to a weekday and daytimerange, each website composition vector comprising a plurality ofelements corresponding to a website, each element corresponding to ademographic subgroup of one or more demographic categories, each elementcomprising a probability that a random user visiting the website duringthe weekday and range of time of day corresponding to the websitecomposition vector is in the demographic subgroup corresponding to theelement.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein the estimated userdemographic profile comprises a set of probabilities that the user is inone or more demographic subgroups of one or more demographic categories.12. The method of claim 11, wherein the one or more demographiccategories are selected from the group consisting of: age, gender,education level, ethnicity, income level, and presence of children inthe user's household.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the estimateduser demographic profile comprises a user probability vector comprisinga plurality of elements, each element corresponding to a demographicsubgroup of one or more demographic categories, each element comprisinga probability that the user is in the demographic subgroup correspondingto the element.
 14. A method of presenting information to a plurality ofanonymous users that visit one or more websites of a predetermined groupof websites, the method comprising: determining user demographicprofiles of the plurality of anonymous users, wherein determining theuser demographic profiles comprises: determining whether each anonymoususer's computer has user identification data installed thereon, saiddetermining performed for each anonymous user upon the anonymous uservisiting a website of the predetermined group of websites, the useridentification data unique to the anonymous user; installing useridentification data on each anonymous user's computer if the anonymoususer's computer does not have the user identification data installedthereon; generating a first record of visits by each anonymous user tothe websites of the predetermined group of websites; providing one ormore website profiles comprising demographic characteristics of eachwebsite visited by the anonymous user of the predetermined group ofwebsites; and calculating an estimated user demographic profile of eachanonymous user by using the first record of visits of the anonymoususers and the one or more website profiles; receiving a signalindicating that an anonymous user of the plurality of anonymous users isvisiting a website of the predetermined group of websites; using theestimated user demographic profile of the anonymous user to selectinformation to be presented to the anonymous user; and transmitting theinformation to the anonymous user's computer.
 15. A computer-readablestorage medium having instructions stored thereon which cause ageneral-purpose computer to perform a method of determining a userdemographic profile of an anonymous user of one or more websites of apredetermined group of websites, the method comprising: determiningwhether an anonymous user's computer has user identification datainstalled thereon, said determining performed upon the anonymous uservisiting a website of the predetermined group of websites, the useridentification data unique to the anonymous user; installing the useridentification data on the anonymous user's computer if the anonymoususer's computer does not have the user identification data installedthereon; generating a first record of visits by the anonymous user tothe websites of the predetermined group of websites; providing one ormore website profiles comprising demographic characteristics of eachwebsite visited by the anonymous user of the predetermined group ofwebsites; and calculating an estimated user demographic profile of theanonymous user by using the first record of visits by the anonymous userand the one or more website profiles.
 16. A computer system fordetermining a user demographic profile of an anonymous user of one ormore websites of a predetermined group of websites, the computer systemcomprising: means for receiving a signal transmitted via a computernetwork indicative of whether an anonymous user's computer has useridentification data installed thereon, wherein said determining isperformed upon the anonymous user visiting a website of thepredetermined group of websites, the user identification data unique tothe anonymous user; means for transmitting the user identification datato the anonymous user's computer via the computer network if theanonymous user's computer does not have the user identification datainstalled thereon; means for generating a first record of visits by theanonymous user to the websites of the predetermined group of websitesbased on signals received via the computer network; means for providingone or more website profiles comprising demographic characteristics ofeach website visited by the anonymous user of the predetermined group ofwebsites; and means for calculating an estimated user demographicprofile of the anonymous user by using the first record of visits by theanonymous user and the one or more website profiles.
 17. The computersystem of claim 16, wherein the computer network is the Internet.